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Greek-Italian throwdown!: Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009; The Greek Food Festival. The San Gennaro Feast. Two great ethnic food events—but what if you can only attend one? How to choose? Perhaps this handy point system will help you decide.
What's in a name: When it’s a title like the one of Jerry Misko’s latest display, plenty; Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009; Jerry Misko’s distinctive work—paintings that zoom in tight on this city’s signage and neon iconography—has made him one of the quintessential Vegas artists. His new exhibit is titled Jerry F’n Misko. We asked him about that.
An honorable tribute: Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009; This is one way pitiless Sin City shows its heart: throwing an A-team of Strip performers at a good cause. In this case, to remember Michael Jackson for the benefit of school music programs.
Heavy Rotation: Twenty Writers on the Albums That Changed Their Lives: Edited by Peter Terzian. Harper Perennial, $15.; Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009; A lovely diagram review of the book edited by Peter Terzian.
It's our time again: Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009; Minutes before deadline, we did a Google news search on the terms “Oscar Goodman” + “Time Magazine.” After all, Time’s new cover piece about effed-up Vegas is just the sort of vandalism that reliably gets Oscar foaming.
A museum for every crime: Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009; Why stop at a mob museum? If the Mayor is right, if we can launder the city’s grubby soul into squeaky-clean tourist coin, why not capitalize on the full range of immorality Vegas offers?
Serra's weighty drawings: Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009; So what do you make of these prints by New York sculptor Richard Serra? Start with the obvious: They’re big and uncomplex and heavy. Not intimate, these etchings.
Not sissy books: A few words from best-selling romance novelist (and Henderson resident) Robyn Carr; Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009; I absolutely am not one of the tortured writers. I’m having a good time, and if I wasn’t I’d do something else. I don’t like to suffer. Depression doesn’t work for me—I think I could have a good time at a car wreck.
Giant size me: Thursday, July 30, 2009; It’s hard to explain why a single giant Cheeto is better than a handful of regular Cheetos. Trust us.
An Oscar party for everyone: Thursday, July 30, 2009; Anger toward vandals? Exaggerated dismay at Obama’s Las Vegas remarks? His drinking habits? Oscar Goodman shares it all. Now, he's letting us share in his birthday party, complete with a special gin cocktail for the occasion.
Doctorow’s in the house: Thursday, July 23, 2009; Quick, name America’s poet laureate. Those of you who knew it’s Kay Ryan will surely be on hand November 5 when she gives the opening keynote speech for the Vegas Valley Book Festival.
Adding significant value?: Thursday, July 16, 2009; What is the value of creativity? Not in some artsy-fartsy, theoretical way, either: What’s it worth in dollars?
Know what’s funny?: The 21 comic writers interviewed in Here’s the Kicker sure do; Thursday, July 9, 2009; Scan the list of big shots on the cover: Buck Henry, Al Jaffee, Bob Odenkirk, Paul Feig, Merrill Markoe, Larry Gelbart, Harold Ramis, David Sedaris, Jack Handey, Larry Wilmore. That’s a lot of funny business for one book.
Hella Nation: Thursday, July 2, 2009; These hard-won tales, dragged in from the grubby margins of America—where Wright’s anarchists, grifters, white supremacists, porn performers and one very gonzo war documentarian all hang out—deserve a wider audience than the latest fad diet manual.
Interview Issue: Cindy Funkhouser: Thursday, July 2, 2009; The co-founder of First Friday and owner of the Funk House addresses concerns over the future of the monthly art festival and her rebuttal from other artists that she's a "control freak."
This week's damn fine idea: Annex Neonopolis: Thursday, June 25, 2009; Given Mayor Goodman’s announcement it'll be impossible to build a new city hall, a recent visit to the mostly empty Neonopolis has put the obvious idea in our head: Annex Neonopolis as a new city hall.
The view from Ensign's hair: Thursday, June 25, 2009; Whereas the senator is deceitful, the Hair is steadfast. Whereas the man commits hypocrisy—in public, family-values warrior; in private, doing a married employee—the Hair remains unwavering, always.
How the other half lives: Idiot America explores people’s unquestioning faith in dangerous ideas; Thursday, June 18, 2009; Idiot America—we’ve all been there. It’s that other country, overlaid on top of this one, that you hear on talk radio and Bill O’Reilly’s show, and it’s probably occupied by a few people you know.
The consequences of nonsense: Talking with Charles P. Pierce, author of Idiot America; Thursday, June 18, 2009; "I differentiate between the greatness of America in producing people who are completely crazy—and it’s a wonderful thing about us. But if we act upon it as a society, and if we accept these ideas whole into the mainstream, actual people get hurt, and actual damage is done."
Pita perfection: Kabob Korner offers a tasty trip to the Middle East, or not; Thursday, May 14, 2009; Okay, let’s not bullshit each other here. I’m not going to pretend I can tell you whether the food at Kabob Korner is “authentic” in the sense that it tastes like what you’d get in the Middle East. (Never been there.)
Academy: reopened: Charleston bookstore back from the ashes; Thursday, May 7, 2009; Here’s your main takeaway from this story: Academy Fine Books is open again.
Heaven forbid!: Thursday, April 30, 2009; Patron saints—isn’t it time to deputize some new ones, fresh inspirational figures to help us face our uniquely modern problems?
Mr. Sunday night: Thoughts on the retirement of John Madden; Thursday, April 23, 2009; The measure of John Madden is simple: He helped make Sunday the new Monday.
The wrong choice: Thursday, April 23, 2009; At Timbers Bar and Grill on Sunday morning, in full view of my wife, friends and the overly caffeinated waitress, I commit the biggest mistake I’ll make all week: I don’t order the Sierra Madre Omelet.
A literary mash-up: Chatting with the author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies; Thursday, April 16, 2009; In Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Quirk Books, $13), humor writer Seth Grahame-Smith took Austen’s original masterpiece and added the undead.
Deep-fry them puppies!: Thursday, March 19, 2009; Deep-frying might be the best thing to happen to food since the advent of eating it. It’s alchemical.
Zombie burlesque!: Thursday, March 12, 2009; Of all the things that phrase could denote—a new album by The Vermin; a chapbook by a desperately hip poet; a display of mildly taboo art in a gallery you’re not cool enough to know about—perhaps the most surprising is this: a zombie-themed burlesque show.
Three questions about the American Dream: A chat with Vanity Fair writer David Kamp; Thursday, March 12, 2009; David Kamp traces the evolution of the American Dream and how it became the twisted pursuit of excess that appears to be the reigning interpretation of the phrase.
The Vegas Watchmen: Matching up the dystopian heroes to notable local figures; Thursday, March 5, 2009; Nite Owl's defining characteristics: Geeky, gadget-dependent, needs persona to connect with women. Closest local equivalent: Criss Angel
It's a crime: Bookstore and bakery Cheesecake and Crime is the Valley's latest casualty; Saturday, Feb. 28, 2009; Every time a bookstore closes, a broker in bundled subprime derivatives should be tossed from the roof of a government-rescued bank.
Opening doors: Rich imparts hard-earned wisdom for tough times; Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009; Ryan D’Agostino cold-called residents in some of America’s wealthiest neighborhoods to ask rich people how they got that way.
Allegory, with giant drooling wolves: Eight random thoughts while viewing the trailer for Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, which isn’t being screened for critics; Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009; In TV ads for Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, scenes showing actress Rhona Mitra are edited in a speedy way that leaves just a little hope that the woman you see is, returning for a third time, Kate Beckinsale. It’s not.
Reading Room: Not dead yet!: Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009; It’s still there, the Reading Room. You may have assumed that the plucky and wonderful independent bookstore occupying a broom closet in Mandalay Place had closed by now. Nope.
Over the Top? Nah: Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2008; Yeah, ZZ Top is a Texas mile past their hit-making years, but their best stuff has real staying power well worth the $25 ticket price.
Desert sanctuary: Remote Goldwell Museum provides residencies, solitude for artists; Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008; It can be easy to let the Goldwell Open Air Museum slip out of mind, seeing as how it’s near Rhyolite, which is near Beatty, which is near no place you’ve been lately.
He's tricky: Lax makes smooth transition from magic to law to writing; Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008; Rick Lax is a magician turned lawyer turned author. Weekly sat down with the man at his de facto workplace, Borders at Town Square.
Taking a chill swill: Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008; I was about to attend a birthday party with 15 preschoolers dancing to hula music; and my hapless Broncos were losing to the even more hapless Raiders. So I downed a can of Drank.
Dray, his art head for Atlanta: Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008; For those who keep an eye on the arts district, Dray’s departure—for Atlanta—changes the metabolism of the scene a little.
Not shaken, not stirred: Thursday, Nov. 13, 2008; Beer and Bond—if it’s not a match made in the movies, where the spy favors martinis, it’s now one made in certain movie theaters.
LVW to RS: We're bigger than you!: Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008; Change arrived in the mail: Rolling Stone. Well, it said Rolling Stone on the cover and had the same middle-of-the-road music coverage inside. But it didn’t feel like the old Stone. Because it isn’t: The venerable music mag has ditched its singular oversize format in favor of standard magazine dimensions.
Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America: by Brain Francis Slattery. Tor, $16.95; Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008; A scarily of-the-moment premise here, for a piece of speculative fiction: The American economy implodes, the dollar becomes worthless, government disbands, nothing works, chaos reigns, and, while the world looks impassively on, the U.S. disintegrates into criminal syndicates, hostile tribes, nomadic bands and worse.
Life, letters and Las Vegas: A conversation between Douglas Unger and H. Lee Barnes; Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008; If you want to have a conversation about writing and Las Vegas, it would be hard to find a better-matched pair than Douglas Unger and H. Lee Barnes.
Back to Basics: MTZC’s Zeilman closes gallery to nurture his own artistic side; Thursday, Oct. 23, 2008; "It feels like it’s kinda time.” Not much of an epitaph, perhaps, but that’s what Mark T. Zeilman offers in the way of final words for his soon-to-close Downtown art gallery, MTZC.
Sixty-seven words about the work of artist Geoffrey Todd Smith: At the Main Gallery through October 31; Thursday, Oct. 23, 2008; Abstract. Color-drunk. Pattern-happy. Spazzy! Occasionally pinwheelish. Doodle-reminiscent. Plausibly inspired by casino carpeting? Gaudy!
Why I can't stand Judge Judy: Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008; When she gets home early enough, my wife watches Judge Judy, and it always drives me from the room.